Rally targets Japanese Embassy

1,000 Chinese protesters join in opposing new WWII account, see threat to U.N. role

STEPHANIE HOO, Associated Press

Published 5:30 am, Sunday, April 10, 2005

BEIJING - Protesters threw rocks and broke windows at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Saturday, accusing Japan of distorting its wartime past in new schoolbooks and urging the Chinese government to prevent Tokyo from gaining influence at the United Nations.

About 1,000 people shouted "Boycott Japanese products!" and threw eggs, rocks, beer bottles and pieces of concrete as hundreds of police formed a human wall to keep them away from the embassy. Their projectiles smashed windows of the compound guardhouse.

They marched to the embassy after a noisy rally by more than 6,000 people in the university district in the capital's northwest, where some burned a Japanese flag.

"China's economy needs to grow even bigger so Japan won't be able to push us around ever again," said protester Huang Liyi, 22, a chemist who learned about the rally on a Web site.

Others said advance word of the protest spread by e-mail and mobile phone text message.

The Japanese government lodged a protest over China's handling of the demonstrations and asked for better security. Most protests in the Chinese capital are banned, but the government occasionally allows brief protests by a few dozen people at a time outside the Japanese Embassy on key war anniversaries.

The protest was the biggest in the tightly controlled Chinese capital since 1999, when the U.S. Embassy was besieged after NATO warplanes bombed Beijing's Embassy in Belgrade during the war in Kosovo.

Japan has faced mounting anger from China and South Korea over new textbooks that critics say gloss over World War II atrocities such as Japan's forcing Asian women into sex slavery and its wartime aggression.

Saturday's rally began at a shopping center that sells Japanese-made electronics. Shopkeepers pulled down window shades to hide their products, and police kept demonstrators from entering.

Protesters waved flags, sang the Chinese national anthem and carried signs condemning the history textbooks.

Spectators cheered as the marchers passed. Some waved Chinese flags from their storefronts and apartment windows.

"Down with Japan!" the protesters chanted. "Long live China!"

Some tore down advertisements for Japanese-made Canon cameras and kicked cars that they thought were Japanese. Others threw stones at a Japanese restaurant but were pushed away by police.

Others called for the rejection of Tokyo's campaign for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council — a status held by only China, the United States, Russia, Britain and France.

"I think China should be more firm," said James Liu, 25, an engineer at a French company in Beijing. "This is a good way to pass our voice to the government and to the Japanese people."

The Chinese government has not said whether it will oppose a Security Council seat for Japan. Beijing regards Tokyo as its rival and could be unwilling to give up its status as the only Asian nation with a permanent council seat, which carries veto power over U.N. actions.